How high will Microsoft fly? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly?

MSFT 478.53

-1.0%

Dec 12 9:30 AM EST

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To: ed who wrote (14051)	1/9/1999 3:39:00 PM
From: t2	Read Replies (2) of 74651

Ed, The fact that MSFT has stated that they have no plans to sell the internet business is confirmation (to me) that their ISP and MSN portal are doing great. In my previous post -- at the end of the story (ZNET), company spokesman says ISP should become profitable and 100 million being spent on advertising. I guess that advertising must be working(this is what i felt after i saw the ads) --- he sounded positive. I realize there is an argument that MSFT wants to be a product company and not a service company -- which lends support to the idea of a potential sale. However, they have smart executives that know what kind of risk this involves.--THE WHOLE FUTURE SEEMS TO BE THE NET. Why shut yourself out at this point. Here is what i think happened in those AT&T meetings with Bill Gates. I think the purpose was to get friendly with ATT because they are taking over TCI cable. MSFT wants a bigger part of the set top boxes than they got in the last deal from TCI. I believe SUNW got a big contract also. I remember the story was that Bill Gates was not happy about this. As soon as this deal broke, MSFT again starting focussing on telephone and satelite internet access including fibre optics. They knew cable did not want MSFT to gain dominance and MSFT does not want anything less than that (at least in software). Now they know new management from AT&T might reconsider and offer more to MSFT but in return AT&T wants something back. AT&T probably wants MSFT's internet business because their own ISP has limitations when compared to AOL. I have AT&T internet access -- it is great in Canada! Busy signals are rare. However, there is not much more offered by their ISP after you are on the net (at least in Canada). I think they want more content. Discussions about this would be inevitable. Hopefully we will see deals or joint ventures between the two companies because MSFT wants cable and AT&T wants MSN portal. I can tell that if AT&T and MSFT announce some sort of deal(and not a sale of MSN portal ---- a sale of the ISP business may be OK), both stocks will take off!!! ISP business is going to become very competitive---the content is what is going to matter. If MSFT sells the ISP business, they can work out a lot of deals with ISPs about content. IF MSFT does not compete with ISPs, they will not feel threatened and will be willing to add MSN.com content. (BTW - This sounds like the argument I made about IBM and its services business and MSFT not having one--- which helps sale of SQL, EXCHANGE,etc.)

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